Chapter 3 All For Profit

Amanda was all smiles as Precious walked out of the conference door, she handed her a carefully homemade milkshake for her outstanding presentation. In fact, Amanda was Precious's number one fan and best friend in everything.

Precious was glad the presentation was good although she believed that the best way to determine whether the presentation was good or not would be by engaging her boss because Amanda would always say things that would encourage her or make her happy as her best friend, she was not sure if Amanda would ever want to critique her for anything.

Well the boss was happy because he called for emergency meeting with the top guys in the office, although Precious was not among the top staff in the office because she joined about a year ago, she was still invited for the emergency meeting. The crop of the conversation was about selling the app they developed or insisting on just investments. Many of the staff wanted the app to be sold with its prototype for trillions in dollars because they would make so much money and could develop a new different app that could solve human needs.

In fact one of the heads mentioned that '' if this idea could come from one of us, then there are more ideas stored in there! ''. This offended Precious but she never fickle nor expressed her dissatisfaction, rather she remained calm until she was asked to talk about her own opinion.

Precious was the one that thought about the app idea and even developed it, now they want to sell her ideas to some money-mongers who do not have community interest at heart, rather those who are craving for benefits. '' In my opinion, I would suggest we insist on investment, many of them already like the idea of the app so that would make them to invest and become shareholders, we can increase the price of the shares and still make more money but we will still be in possession of the app as founders. Although the money we would be making could be slow but over the years, we all would be billionaires or millionaires!. The implication of not selling the app now is that we wont make trillions immediately but in 5 years, we would definitely make more with right investments ''. She said her piece but one of the heads mentioned that the real implication would be duplication of app and loss of monogamy within a year. He explained further that if they keep the app and the app launches, many micro and major organizations are going to steal the idea and create similar app, competition would exist and those organizations could run them down or out of business with adequate funding and efficiency.

Precious felt torn out because she knew right there that her opinion would be tramped, the fact that many of the other stakeholders were already fixing their eye on the money they would make immediately instead of the impact, future investments and money that would still b made, got her so worried and emotional.

She walked out of the door after the meeting which ended ''inconclusive'' feeling sad about herself. She had thought about quitting the job and going with her design but that cannot work because she signed some documents when she joined the organization stating that any work or idea that proceeds from her during the period she works with them must remain for the organization and never for personal use. She called her lawyer and she was told that pursuing the case would be a lost cause, so Precious had to settle for whatever decision they decide to come up with.

The worst thing that had feared Precious the most was the fact that leaving the job would make her vulnerable and broken because she was unsure if she had fully healed from her past, in fact, the job was serving as a decoy to heal completely from her last experience.

So amidst the elegant, boldface and resilient woman you see every day in Precious, there was a quiet, sad, lonely soul locked up and trapped inside that body, it seemed like a hard nut to crack but in reality, all one needed to do was to just puncture the right words, then Precious would most likely burst out in tears.

The secret to her hard work and consistency in development and project management was solely spurred by the fact that she had a very terrible experience which she nearly died from, In fact after the incident, she was kicked out of her paternal home and she had to move to a new city to start a new life with a clean slate and equal opportunity.

Although the emotional surge was converted into positive use in her work space where she works like a workaholic, she was deep down drained with emotions and shame because no one really believed or wanted to hear whatever thing she wanted to say or share concerning the series of events that led to her been thrown out by her family, whom she believed were her only hope of survival and comforters.

While Precious was still in deep thought, Amanda walked up to her again but this time with French fries and a bottle of carbonated drink, she tickled Precious from the back and dropped the fries beside her, Precious looked at her and smiled but Amanda could see beyond the fake smiles from Precious's face, so she asked '' Baby girl what's the problem, have you been crying? ''.

Precious told her not to worry much about it because she would be fine, but with Amanda's persistence, Precious just told her that the board in the office was considering selling her ideas, the app and the project to the highest bidder, she explained that they were all money mongers and are short-sighted to see the future ahead.

Amanda was pissed but as a junior staff, she knew that her opinion would not even go beyond Precious's ear, so she resorted to comforting her instead.